Yosemite in focus

My nomadic friend Amy and I braved some evil weather to drive to Yosemite this past weekend—mainly because she's about to move back east and had never been there, but also because it's an awesome place to see any time of year.

I only have my black-and-white roll back so far (color to come eventually), but I thought you might like to see some photos from the trip.

After an extra-long ride in the pouring rain, we spent Friday night at a comfy hostel about 30 miles from the park:


This graceful tree was somewhere near the parking lot:


Then we woke up Saturday morning to a miraculously sunny day. It was chilly, but it didn't rain at all. Our first stop was the unavoidable and amazing Half Dome:


In case you don't believe we were really there . . . see?















This little guy was perched on the bridge railing by the dome viewpoint. I managed to get his portrait before he melted into the River of Mercy (real name) below:


Around the corner from Half Dome, you can stop and gawk at Yosemite Falls, raging like nobody's business this time of year:

At the falls viewpoint, we saw a sign that made me appreciate the sunshine even more:


But the clouds were hanging low all morning, so everything looked misty in a cinematic way:

We thought we missed El Capitan, but now I think this might be it. Or it's another enormous, awe-inspiring hunk of stone. Embarrassing that I have no idea. Anyone?

During our afternoon hike along Mist Trail and John Muir Trail, we kept seeing these funky smoke trails shoot up like arrows. Not sure what they were all about—flight testing in the park?—but they disappeared quickly, so it took a few tries to get this shot:

Along the trail, we saw some bizarre and beautiful shapes randomly cut into rocks. Probably by nature, but Amy theorized the pipe-like ones might have been for dynamite:




I loved the sprawling, finger-like roots of this big ol' tree:


And we passed this view near the end of the hike, when the light began to fade and the snow got too slippery and steep for us to keep going:

Then we took our soaked, tired feet back to the hostel for a well-earned rest by the fire.